


never let me down again

by belovedmuerto



Series: blood and moonlight [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Pre-Slash, Vampire!Bucky, Witch!Steve, another vampire AU, werewolf!Howlies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 17:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8763067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: He wakes up alone, in his own bed. In his own house.





	

**Author's Note:**

> see the end note for warnings if you want them.
> 
> thanks to moonblossom for doing a quick read-through on this for me yesterday.

He wakes up.

 

He wakes up alone, in his own bed. In his own house. (Well, his “own” house. It’s not like it isn’t on Pierce’s property. It’s not like it wasn’t a “gift” from Pierce for his many years of “loyal” service. It’s not like he hadn’t had an increasingly alarming issue of accidentally setting things on fire in the main house when he was angry.) (He was angry a lot.)

 

For a few minutes, Steve just lays there, snugged up in his bed like it’s any other day, wondering what the fuck happened after the shit hit the fan, after James took on Pierce and appeared to be winning.

 

He hadn’t really meant to survive it. He hadn’t really intended to survive it. He was wholly prepared to and okay with dying. He doesn’t know how he did survive. He doesn’t remember when he passed out. He does remember the searing pain that’s still echoing through his head and body.

 

He has a massive headache; usually the result of too much magic, some surge of power that he hadn’t prepared for, hadn’t grounded himself for or asked to use.

 

The headache is generally the least of it.

 

Slowly, as his head clears, the pain backs off, a little. 

 

After a while, he finally stirs, dragging himself upright and then out of bed, to stand next to it in nothing but his boxers, shivering a little in the cool bedroom. It’s no cooler than usual, but something feels different. 

 

Steve feels different. He can’t quite pinpoint it. He shuffles into the bathroom to pee and brush his teeth. A shower can wait, but for now he’s going to act like this is a normal day. 

 

He wanders through the house, touching his fingers to doorways and sills, checking his wards. They’re all intact, just the way he’d left them when he’d gone up to the main house for what was supposed to be the last time.

 

Seriously, what the fuck happened?

 

Someone had brought him back here, tucked him into bed. Someone who had meant him absolutely no ill will, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to come in. 

 

He’d hidden his warding abilities from Pierce for literal decades. If Pierce somehow survived James taking him on directly, it wasn’t he who brought Steve back here. 

 

It was someone else.

 

For now, he’s not going to dwell on it too hard. The sun is still up, no one he knows will be coming for him anytime in the next few hours. Even if any of the humans are awake or alive, they won’t venture far from those they serve.

 

He gets dressed in comfortable clothes and eats breakfast before he ventures outside to reinforce the wards out there. He doesn’t want to be snuck up on, not right now. Not while he doesn’t know where he stands.

 

Things become clearer when he gets outside and sees the main house, up on its hill, the east wing still gently smoking in the afternoon breeze.

 

Well, that just about creates more questions than it answers. 

 

For a few minutes, he just stares at the house, transfixed, wondering what he’d missed. Wondering if anyone at all survived. Wondering _what the fuck_.

 

Then he shakes himself out of it and starts across his front yard. He walks a slow perimeter around the house and his gardens, two then three times, reinforcing his wards. It helps to clear his mind and ease the aches and pains he’s still feeling, channeling his magic into the ground, into the air, taking strength from the earth deep beneath his bare feet.

 

After he’s satisfied that the wards are as strong as he can make them without far more work and a ritual he’s not prepared for, he goes back inside and eats breakfast. After that, he showers, and then he goes down into his workshop. Steve spends a couple of hours working on his potions and other things, checking his stores and making a couple of lists of things he needs to stock up on.

 

When he realizes it’s going on dusk, he goes back upstairs and eats again. His headache is nearly gone, and he can feel the strength of the wards around his home. He is, relatively speaking, safe. 

 

As safe as he’s ever been, since Pierce took him and bound him.

 

He eats his dinner sitting in his garden, being sure to leave a little behind for the crows.

 

0---=

 

It’s not his wards going off that alert him to the presence of another person, but the crows, chattering to each other up in the trees. It sounds like they’re yelling at whoever it is. Probably because they’re disturbing the crows’ dinner. 

 

Whoever it is, Steve can feel them out there now, just outside of where the wards would have any real effect. He goes outside to find out who it is.

 

The man standing in the treeline is covered in dirt. And blood. And possibly other stuff, but Steve isn’t going to look too closely at that. His hair is hanging in his face, shoulder-length and dirty. He’s taller than Steve, broad shouldered. He looks sturdy. Like someone you don’t want to cross in a fight.

 

This must be James.

 

They’ve never met in person, but Steve knows of him by reputation. The Winter Soldier, a vampire feared by nearly all. (Pierce had scoffed at him, called him a silly boy throwing a tantrum. Pierce had been wrong, apparently.)

 

The vampire is picking at his fingers, a vaguely disgusted look twisting his mouth. He looks up when Steve draws near, and Steve gasps. The twist of James’s mouth goes wry, and he drops his hands to his sides.

 

One of them is metal.

 

“Hiya, Stevie,” he says, softly. His voice carries across the distance, seems to echo in the trees, whisper along Steve’s skin.

 

“Bucky?” Steve takes a step back, involuntary, shaking his head. “You can’t-- You’re dead.”

 

“Well, yes. Technically I am.” Bucky shrugs.

 

Steve’s knees go out from under him, in shock, in awe, and he lands hard on his ass in the dirt. Bucky jumps forward, not quite fast enough to catch him, probably entirely on purpose because Steve knows vampire speed well, and he’d seen Bucky move. If Bucky hadn’t wanted him to see him move, Steve knows he wouldn’t have. He also wouldn’t have bruises forming on his butt. Bucky kneels down at his side.

 

He didn’t set off Steve’s wards.

 

Well, that’s interesting.

 

“Steve. Steve? Steve!” Bucky is saying his name, over and over again. “Steve, are you all right?”

 

Slowly, Steve looks up at him. Bucky is close, so close. Reaching toward him, but not touching him. Hesitant. He seems almost wary of Steve, and it confuses him. Bucky is one of them; he’s a vampire. He’s the vampire who took out Pierce. Based on the charred remains of the house up the hill, Bucky took out most if not all of Pierce’s retinue as well. His hangers on and sycophants. He should not be afraid of a witch like Steve.

 

“Is Rumlow still--”

 

“No,” Bucky tells him. “No, he’s dead. Final death dead. Steve, can you--?”

 

Steve looks at him, and realizes that he’s crackling. Not Bucky, Steve. Steve is crackling, his power shimmering across his skin, standing all the tiny hairs along his arms on end. It looks at a glance like the same thing is happening to Bucky. He has goosebumps. Steve didn’t know vampires could even get goosebumps.

 

“Oh.” He shuts his eyes and concentrates a moment, puts his hands on the ground next to him, drains some of it off. He hears Bucky breathe a sigh of relief that’s entirely unnecessary next to him. 

 

Bucky doesn’t need to breathe.

 

“What happened to you?” he asks without opening his eyes. He listens as Bucky shifts, and he knows that he’s doing it for Steve, to put him at ease. The worst part is that it works, to a degree.

 

Bucky had been his friend. They’d grown up together. His only friend; the others had whispered about him, about his mother. There was always talk, except when someone needed his mother’s services, and then they all came to her for help, for potions, for spells, for birthing assistance.

 

It had been a long time ago. Such a long time ago, Steve barely remembers it anymore. Barely remembers happiness, barely remembers being free, being loved.

 

And then his mother had died, and they’d started to look at him, to look to him. He’d learned well at his mother’s side.

 

And then Alexander Pierce heard of him. Took him.

 

No one came for him.

 

\----

 

“I went after you,” Bucky says. “After they took you away. And I was-- I was stupid. I was just a child. Zola. It was Zola who turned me.”

 

Steve opens his eyes. Neither of them has changed much in appearance. Steve’s age has been tied to Pierce’s longevity for so long he no longer looks for wrinkles, for gray hairs. He doesn’t age so long as--

 

But Pierce is dead. And he is not.

 

He shakes his head at Bucky. “What did you do to me.” It doesn’t come out a question, because he already knows the answer. He can feel the answer, thrumming through his blood, pounding like his heart.

 

Bucky breaks his gaze, looks away.

 

“I couldn’t let you go, Stevie,” he says, his voice the whispering of the wind in the trees.

 

Above them, Steve hears the crows chattering.

 

“So you--”

 

“I’d just found you again, I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t let you go with him. There was no other way.”

 

Steve takes a deep breath. His voice, when he speaks, sounds remarkably even. “You could’ve let me die. I was ready to die. That was always the plan. I knew he couldn’t be destroyed without taking me with him.” He looks directly at Bucky, into his eyes that should be mesmerizing, but aren’t. He’s immune to that power, if Bucky possesses it. Immune because of the bond that Bucky had forged between them, apparently. Bound again, when he’d finally thought it was going to be over. “The price of freedom is high, and it was one I was willing to pay.”

 

Bucky tears his gaze away again.

 

“You don’t know me anymore, James Buchanan Barnes. I’m not the child of the light that I was then. There is much soot on my soul. I’m willing to pay for the life I’ve led, the things I’ve had to do to stay alive all these years. I was prepared for death.”

 

“I know,” Bucky murmurs. “I’m not the happy child I was when I was alive either, Steven Grant Rogers.”

 

It’s been decades since someone called him by his full name. Centuries, possibly. 

 

God, they’ve both been through too much, haven’t they?

 

“Do you know why I was called the Winter Soldier?” Bucky asks him, after a while.

 

Steve glances at him, shakes his head.

 

“I was Zola’s enforcer. His soldier. His cold winter wind. I did all his dirty work. His power was over the mind, and he had completely control of me, for so long. I couldn’t break free, even when I knew what I was doing. It took me near to a century to get strong enough.”

 

Steve knows what had happened, when Bucky--when the Winter Soldier broke free of his Master. 

 

Killed him. Killed his entire nest.

 

Became a killer for hire.

 

It’s why Steve had written to him. Had asked for his help to free him of his own Master. Asked him to destroy Pierce. Promised him whatever spoils he wanted from Pierce’s land and all his… stuff. Steve doesn’t care about any of that. He doesn’t want any of that. He hadn’t planned on needing any of it himself. He’s still fairly certain he doesn’t need any of it.

 

He’d thought he’d known what he was doing. He’d been prepared for the end.

 

He hadn’t been prepared for the Winter Soldier to be the boy he used to love.

 

Steve runs his hands through his hair. He laughs, a little dry, a lot bitter.

 

“I wanted to die, Buck,” he says.

 

“I know. I’m sorry.” Bucky still doesn’t touch him. 

 

He wants Bucky to touch him, and he doesn’t like that. “This is so fucked up.”

 

“Yes,” Bucky agrees.

 

They sit side by side in Steve’s front yard for a long time. Steve resists the urge to touch Bucky, and Bucky doesn’t make a move to touch him either. They’re both silent.

 

\----

 

“I didn’t remember you for a long time,” Bucky says, eventually.

 

“I never forgot you,” Steve replies, his voice soft. He shivers. He’s not exactly cold, but he’s not warm either.

 

Bucky gets up and disappears behind Steve. He doesn’t have the energy to look to see where he’s going. He doesn’t have the energy to care that Bucky is behind him. 

 

It’s just. Everything is so screwed up. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do now. Serve as the right hand of the Winter Soldier, in some capacity?

 

Bucky reappears a few minutes later. Well, he drops a blanket over Steve’s shoulders and then another over his legs and sits down in front of him again. He leans back and runs his hands through his hair, trying to get some of the dirt out. Steve makes a face at him.

 

“You should go shower, you look pretty gross.”

 

Bucky shrugs. “I will soon. I’m waiting on the guys to get here. They shouldn’t be much longer.”

 

“The guys?”

 

Bucky shrugs again. “They’re kinda hard to explain. Do you want to wait inside?”

 

Steve shakes his head.

 

“Okay.”

 

They sit quietly together for a little while, until the crows start chattering again.

 

“They’re better than an alarm system, jeez,” Bucky mutters, and Steve grins at him and nods.

 

One by one, six figures melt out of the woods around them. They all draw close to Steve’s wards and stop, assessing him, the area. Almost as one, they look to Bucky, and Steve follows, looking at Bucky as well.

 

“All clear,” the woman in the group reports.

 

Bucky nods.

 

“They’re wolves,” Steve says, staring at the group. Five men of varying heights and ethnicities, and one petite woman around whom they are ranged. She is glaring, arms crossed. She seems to disapprove.

 

Steve likes her already.

 

“They are,” Bucky agrees. “They’re mine.”

 

Pretty much all of the wolves start grumbling, at that. For all that they seem to be a coherent group, at a glance, they aren’t very disciplined; they are at ease with each other, with Bucky.

 

“Can it,” Bucky orders, quietly.

 

They mostly subside, rolling their eyes at him. One of them the one in the bowler hat (what the hell?) with the handlebar mustache, quips, “Aye, aye Sarge.”

 

Steve stands up and gestures at them, “Don’t just stand around, I guess. Might as well come in.”

 

They look at Bucky before moving, and Steve breathes a sigh of relief when they all pass through his wards unhindered. It does seem to affect them though; or at least they all feel it.

 

“Steve,” Bucky says, when they’re standing around him. “The Howlies--”

 

The woman clears her throat. 

 

“And Peggy Carter. Everyone, Steve. Don’t cross him, he can probably electrocute you with his mind.”

 

Steve rolls his eyes. “Something like that. Well, you’re probably all hungry--”

 

“Not really,” someone quips.

 

“Okay, well I am. Come on, I guess.” Steve leads the way across his yard and into his house. Everyone falls back behind Bucky, and Steve turns in the doorway. Bucky obviously doesn’t need an invitation to enter the house; he’s bound to Steve. He’d already gone inside to get blankets (Steve can see the trail of dirt he’d left behind). He’d maybe been the one to put Steve in bed when he was unconscious. But he’s standing at the door waiting. 

 

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “Come in, please,” he says.

 

Bucky steps over the threshold.

 

\----

 

Steve heads for the kitchen; he’s hungry. He rarely has visitors, let alone werewolf visitors, but his first instinct is always to offer food. Or at least something to drink. Not that he has much in the way of food in his fridge, but he can still offer what he has. There is something of hospitality still in his bones.

 

“The bathroom is just down the hall across from the guest room if you want to shower,” he says to Bucky. “There are towels in the linen closet, and I can try to find you something to wear.”

 

He looks down at himself, five foot three and just over a hundred pounds, and then at Bucky, who easily weighs twice what he does. Is maybe twice as broad across the shoulders as him as well, and a bit taller. 

 

“I might have some sweats you can wear,” he offers, feeble.

 

“Thanks,” Bucky replies, a sardonic smirk on his face. He turns and heads for the bathroom.

 

When Steve turns back towards the kitchen, all of the Howlies are giving him various looks of amusement. They’re all very watchful, though all of them make an effort to appear casual, like they’re not watching his every move.

 

It makes him antsy, but he tries to shrug it off.

 

Steve rummages through the fridge, coming up with enough to make himself a sandwich, at least. He’s going to have to do something about this lack of food thing sooner rather than later. He wonders idly if he’d locked the door to the basement, and then shrugs. He’s pretty sure none of the wolves will have any interest in his potion and magickal supplies.

 

They all decline politely when he offers food, but they also all take him up on his offers of something to drink, so Steve pulls down glasses for everyone and starts pouring water. They all thank him and sort of stand around watching him while he makes himself a sandwich.

 

Steve takes his sandwich to his little table and sits down to eat, ignoring them all as best he’s able. One by one, they all sort of fade away, leaving quietly. Silently, actually. Steve doesn’t hear any of them go, but soon the only other person left is Peggy, who sits down across from him with her still half full glass of water.

 

For a few minutes, she just watches him eat; it’s like she’s trying to decide what to say. Or how to say whatever it is she wants to say.

 

“We all follow him by choice,” she says, eventually.

 

Steve takes a bite of his sandwich and looks at her pointedly. Must be nice.

 

She shrugs a little, a very elegant gesture on her. Steve likes her despite himself. Despite his distrust of all of this, despite his hurt, despite the fact that _he’s still here_ when he had no intention of that happening.

 

“He cares for you,” she says after a moment.

 

Steve snorts. “He doesn’t know me.”

 

“I think he’d like to,” Peggy says.

 

“I would,” Bucky speaks up from behind her. 

 

Both of them startle, looking up. Bucky has a towel wrapped around his hips, and another in his hands, scrubbing a little at his hair. He gives Peggy a look that Steve sees plainly but can’t quite interpret. She wrinkles her nose at him, but gets up and disappears, probably to the same place the rest of the wolves have gone.

 

“They’ll keep an eye out,” Bucky says. He leans in the archway between the kitchen and the living room. “You can sleep if you need to.”

 

He seems to sense that Steve isn’t in the most receptive mood, and to emphasize it, Steve scowls at him. 

 

“Telling me what to do already?”

 

“No. Stevie, that’s not--”

 

“I’m not him. I’m not that boy anymore. You need to--”

 

“Steve!” Bucky takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I know you’re not him. Neither am I. I would like to--”

 

“No.”

 

“What? You don’t even know--”

 

“I do. You want to get to know me now. Well, I don’t. I don’t want you to get to know me. I don’t want to get to know you. You’re a vampire, Bucky. I’ve known enough vampires in my life.” Steve stands and brushes past Bucky, leaving his sandwich behind. 

 

Bucky doesn’t try to stop or follow him.

 

\----

 

There’s really not anywhere for him to go. Bucky is in his house. He’d invited Bucky into his house; he’d invited Bucky in even though he didn’t need to. He is irrevocably bound to Bucky. He can’t go anywhere. He’s stuck.

 

He’s in exactly the same boat as before.

 

This is so fucked up.

 

\----

 

Bucky finds him later that night in the cellar. He waits until nearly dawn; Steve thinks probably to try and give him time to cool down. He doesn’t feel very cooled down.

 

Steve knows better than to cast when he’s in this much emotional turmoil (he has no desire to set his own house on fire, and that happens distressingly often when he’s angry), so he’s mostly just sitting in the corner in his comfy chair staring at nothing. He’s been listening to the others upstairs, moving around and talking to one another. He can’t really hear most of what they’re saying, but they all seem at ease with one another. Comfortable. Like a family, almost. Or what he thinks a family would sound like, anyway. 

 

He’d gotten out the ingredients for a couple of simple things, a calming potion and something to help him clarify his emotions in his dreams, but he doesn’t want to screw them up so he won’t do anything with them yet. 

 

Bucky comes down the stairs slowly, cautiously. He’s dressed now, and he looks pretty ridiculous. Steve’s t-shirt is stretched tight across his broad shoulders, the sleeves a little too short. The outline of his abs is visible through the thin fabric. The sweats seem to fit ok, other than being a little short.

 

Steve watches him warily. He’s still angry; he doesn’t think that will go away anytime soon. But perhaps the reason he’s so angry is that he’s a little bit glad that Bucky is here. Alive. Sort of. If he has to be stuck with another vampire, perhaps Bucky won’t be so bad.

 

He watches as Bucky crosses the room and stands in front of him. 

 

“I’m not going to apologize for binding you,” Bucky starts, “because I’m not sorry. I’m happy you’re still alive. I am sorry that I had to bind you in order to keep you alive. If there were some other way, I would’ve done it. And maybe there was, but I had about three seconds to decide, and nothing else presented itself.”

 

Steve nods stiffly.

 

“Do you have money?” Bucky goes on.

 

Steve blinks at him. “What?”

 

“Money. Do you have any?”

 

Steve blinks again. “Well, no. I gave it all to you, right?”

 

Bucky shrugs. “You offered it all to me, provided I killed Pierce. You haven’t actually given any of it to me yet. You should keep it.”

 

Faintly above them someone goes “ _What_?!”

 

Steve blinks again. His brain is blank. Utterly and completely. He has access to all of Pierce’s accounts. He’s a co-owner of them all, because he’s been doing all of Pierce’s daylight business for literal centuries.

 

It’s a lot of money.

 

“And I think you should go.”

 

“Go. Where?”

 

Bucky shrugs again. “Wherever the fuck you want. You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to stay with me.”

 

“I-- what?”

 

“You don’t want to be here, or know me. So don’t. You can go. I won’t keep you here against your will.”

 

Steve blinks at him again. For a long moment, he just stares at Bucky, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the trick, for Bucky to rescind this way-too-good-to-be-true deal. 

 

“Just-- can I give you my number? So you can text me if you want? Or maybe check in sometime. If you want.”

 

“ _Are you kidding me_ ” floats down from above them, followed closely by a lot of “Shh!”

 

“You’re serious,” Steve says, voice faint.

 

Bucky nods. “Where’s your phone? I’ll put my number in it. You don’t have to give me yours. Just text me sometime to check in. Ok?”

 

“You’re serious,” Steve murmurs again. He can _feel_ it, he realizes. He can feel how serious Bucky is. He can feel everything Bucky’s feeling, his regret, his certainty that this is the right thing to do, something deeper and darker that he doesn’t really want to examine but feels an awful lot like the way he remembers his mother feeling about him. Something protective and fierce and all-encompassing, and it thaws Steve, just a little.

 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, hands it over. Bucky fiddles with it for a few moments and then hands it back.

 

“Do you have someplace I can sleep when day breaks?” Bucky asks him. As if this is all settled. Steve is suddenly ridiculously rich and free to go wherever the fuck he wants.

 

He might cry.

 

“Uh yeah, there’s a thing in the guest room. Light tight. You can crash there.”

 

“Thank god,” Bucky mutters, and Steve remembers how covered in dirt he’d been when he’d shown up earlier and thinks, _Oh_. 

 

“You slept underground yesterday.”

 

Bucky smiles a little bit, and shrugs. “Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”

 

“Who brought me home?”

 

“We did. Well, I did, but Dum Dum put you to bed; the sun was coming up.”

 

“Thanks,” Steve murmurs.

 

“You’re welcome!” comes from upstairs, and Steve chuckles a little. It’s the first amusement he’s felt in a long time.

 

“I should go,” Bucky adds. “I need to get to bed.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Bucky looks away for a moment, and then back again. Steve can sense that he wants to say something, so he waits.

 

“Um, can I--?”

 

“Yes,” Steve says, even though he doesn’t have any idea what he’s agreeing to. He shouldn’t be agreeing to anything. He’s still incredibly angry, but this is Bucky. When they were little, he was never able to stay angry at Bucky for longer than an afternoon, but that was a long time ago and he is determined to hold onto his anger for a while longer. When they were little, he was never far from Bucky’s sight, and they were easy with each other. Comfortable. They were very tactile with each other.

 

Bucky takes his hand and tugs him gently to his feet, and slowly, so slowly, pulls Steve into a hug. A gentle hug, cool but still comforting. Steve lets himself be held, lets himself melt into it just a little bit. It’s been a long time since someone held him, longer still since someone held him without any ulterior motives. It’s nice.

 

It’s too nice.

 

Bucky lets him go and steps back, looking down at him. He leans in and presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek, so fast Steve hasn’t processed that it’s happened before it’s over. Bucky smiles at him a moment, and then says, “Good night, Steve.”

 

Steve is left staring at the stairs, where Bucky was just a moment ago. He can hear Bucky speaking with his friends upstairs, briefly, and then silence falls. A door shuts somewhere in the house, followed shortly by another that sounds like it’s the front door. The house goes quiet above him. Steve sinks back into his chair and just sits there, trying to figure out what just happened.

 

He stays there for a long time, until long after the sun has risen, before he gets up and starts packing.

**Author's Note:**

> warning for what i guess counts as suicide ideation in this as steve was pretty much planning on dying in the stuff that happened before the story began, and he admits to it.


End file.
